Leo and Jack stood at the mouth of the cave, arms folded, and leaned against the cool stone while surveying their friend.
“It’ll take weeks for him to get better,” Leo whispered.
“So, what do we do?” asked Jack, squinting up and the sun.
“Well, we obviously can’t leave him.”
“Yeah, but we can’t really go anywhere anyway. Especially not dressed like this.”
Leo nodded, and kicked at the loose stone below his feet with his bright white tennis shoes.
Later, Piper helped Jack and Leo find their own small cave close by. It was just large enough for a small fire pit and space for sleeping. They came together for meals and hunting, but there was just something odd about sleeping so close to a girl that the boys couldn’t seem to get over. Piper helped them modify their clothing with furs from the animals they caught and fabrics they acquired from Gran in the village. The mountain nights were chilly, and the fashions of 1997 Swansdale were not made for such. She taught them what plants to look for that could heal wounds or flavor their meals, and how to hunt with an arrow and spear.
By their third day in Chartile, Jayson had insisted he join them.
“I am so bored!” he whined. “You can’t just leave me here all day.”
They gave him his bow and quiver, and, to their surprise, found he was not only able to use it if he moved slowly, but that he was also a decent shot. Jayson shot two rabbits and some kind of small bird on his first day hunting. They used these for trade through Piper’s Gran, and eventually had enough leather to fashion more appropriately styled shoes.
When they weren’t hunting, Piper took the boys down to the base of the mountain where she had first met them. She taught them how to use the weapons they had used during the attack by what they now learned were mountain trolls. They learned to use them all, but each seem to find an ease and strange familiarity in the weapons they had first wielded that fateful night.
It was on their fifth day in Chartile that Jayson made a particular amazing shot by at what Piper called a diten mouse. Leo said it seemed to be a strange combination of guinea pig, gopher and chinchilla, but his friends ignored him. Jayson pumped his fist into the air and did not wince in pain. Piper looked at him a bit stunned and slightly concerned.
“Oh, yeah! One shot and down! Boo-ya!” Jayson fist pumped the air again before noticing his friend’s stares. “What?”
“Dude, you broke your ribs, like five days ago. Did you forget?” asked Jack.
Jayson lifted his tunic and removed the cord and bandages. The bruising was gone. He twisted and turned, flexing his torso.
“No pain,” he said and shrugged.
“Did the prophecy say anything about the kings healing really fast?” asked Leo turning to look at Piper.
Piper did not reply. She looked at the ground and frowned. They watched as she broke from the group to retrieve the diten mouse and headed back towards the mountain path. Jayson picked up the bandages and cord he had dropped and followed Piper and his friends back up the mountain.
The trip back to Piper’s cave was long and uncomfortably quiet. Leo started the fire, and Jack cleaned the arrows while Piper skinned and prepared the diten mice they had caught for dinner. They had agreed not to think of home until Jayson was well again, but they hadn’t expected it to be for another few weeks. Jayson’s sudden recovery had sent their heads reeling.
“It does, doesn’t it?” Jayson asked, staring into the flames.
“What?” asked Jack. He had finished washing his socks, and laid them by the fire to dry.
“The prophecy.” Jayson looked at Piper. She had refused to look at them since returning from their hunt. She sat cleaning a pelt laid out across her lap. “The kings had the ability to heal quickly, didn’t they?”
She tried but could not ignore Jayson’s eyes staring at her any longer. Wiping her hands on a damp cloth, she stood and turned to face him.
“I honestly do not remember, Jayson. I cannot recall the entire poem. But,” she addressed all of them now. “Your abilities to use weapons, your healing, your unexpected arrival. I do not know what else to make of all of this.”
“From stranger lands, return again, bringing to right the wrongs. Shnikies, could it be anymore vague?” Leo sighed loudly and shook his head.
“For real,” said Jack, “How do we even know what we’re supposed to do?”
Chapter Five
Dimitri
The next morning was warm and inviting. A cruel taunt, Jayson thought, as if the world was trying to act completely innocent. He was the first to wake, and sat up to watch the embers of their fire smoldering and hissing beside him. He didn’t move, he just sat and thought. They had stayed the night in Piper’s cave. No one would admit it, but they all feared that with Jayson’s injury healed, something else would happen – though what they didn’t know. They had talked all night, attempting to solve the riddle of the prophecy. Piper had tried desperately, but to no avail, to remember the rest of the poem.
“Was there ever a written record of the prophecy?” Leo had asked.
“Or maybe you know someone who knows all of it,” Jack suggested.
Piper looked up from the fire she had been tending. “Gran had made a copy when she worked at the palace, and had given it to my mother. But it was destroyed during the rebellion.”
“The original might still be at the palace,” said Jack brightly. “We could go there, and—”
“Are you out of your mind?” Piper cried. “I am at large. They’ll kill me the moment they set eyes on me. And not just anyone can walk into the palace and start sifting through the documents of the royal libraries. Some of them date back hundreds of years, and are extremely delicate. It is impossible. There must be another way we have not thought of yet.”
“We’re either stuck here until we can figure out a way into the palace, or we make an opportunity to get the heck out of here,” Jack winced as he looked at Piper, “Er…no offense.”
“How about both?” said Jayson. Leo Jack and Piper whipped their heads around to him. Any plan was worth presenting at that moment, but Jayson was the last person they had expected to hear from. “We go to the palace, steal some guard clothes, and then we can walk around, right? I mean, that’s what they’d do in the movies…I think.”
“And what of me?” asked Piper.
“We say you were pretending to be Piper, but really aren’t her. We say we’re on our way to take you to the dungeons for questioning.” Jack smiled at his ingenious idea.
“It is impossible.” Piper snapped and rubbed her temples. “You do not know any royal etiquette and your accents would give you away instantly. We would be walking into their hands with rope on our wrists.”
“But you know all that stuff. From your mom and Gran?” asked Jayson. “I’ll bet you even went with her to the palace when you were little. You can teach us. This is our only shot, Piper. We act now or never.” He slammed his fist into his open palm, and Leo and Jack nodded in agreement. Piper closed her eyes and sighed in resigned defeat.
Leo crouched low in a defensive position historians would have called The Plow. He had remembered hearing about it during a field trip to Fort Meigs many years ago. He wasn’t sure how he actually remembered how to do it. His breathing was slow and steady, which belied the rapidly beating heart in his chest. Jayson and Piper sat with their backs to a half dead bush that had stubbornly grown amongst the craggy terrain of the mountainside. They were pouring over notes and diagrams, discussing the layout of the palace and the best locations to get inside.
Leo ignored them. He was focused. He was collected. All he cared about was the feel of the steel in his hands, the perfect balance of its weight, and the opponent standing across from him: Jack.
Jack advanced, the bow staff gripped in both hands. He swung, aiming directly for Leo’s head. But the once over-cautious boy was ready. Leo blocked Jack’s attack with an instinctive parry an
d lunged for Jack’s heart. Jack, too, was ready for this, and the parry-repost continued up and down the rocky hillside.
As Jack and Leo fought, Jayson and Piper rolled up their maps, their discussion complete. The girl rose, brushing the earth from her backside, and stretching towards the sun with the faintest bit of a smile on her lips.
“Piper,” said Jayson cautiously. He stared up at her from where he still sat on the ground. “When are you going to teach us how to use magic?”
Piper froze and stared blankly down at Jayson. He looked away, his shoulders drooping and his frown deepening. The silence between them was almost palpable.
“Jayson, I wish I could teach you, but I honestly do not know how. Most of what I know came after I was banished. I was alone, desperate, hungry, and frankly, bored. I cannot put into words how I do what I do. It just happens.” She refused to meet his eye, as with every time Jayson had asked this over the last week.
“You could at least give us some tips, you know, like some magic words to say or something,” Jayson continued to press.
“Jayson, I refuse to talk of this!” cried Piper, and she turned, storming back up the mountain, the parchment crushed tightly in her hands.
“Well, you’re going to have to!” Jayson yelled at her. He leapt to his feet, and squeezed the grip of his bow until his knuckles turned white. “If we’re supposed to fulfill a prophecy here, we need to have all sources of power and weaponry available to us. How else do we win?”
Piper rushed back down the hill to Jayson, stopping within inches of his freckled nose. She glared, but Jayson could see her eyes glistening with tears. He had never seen her this angry before, and his hands shook as he glared back.
“Power and weapons do not guarantee a victory, Jayson Hill.” Her words came as a breathless whisper as she fought the emotion that welled in her. “It takes brains as well as brawn, perhaps even more so. If you are going to be a leader, you need to learn some humility as well.” She took a step back and sighed, her voice softer. “Maybe you aren’t the souls of the ancient kings. Maybe I was wrong. Or maybe, you just need to grow up more first.”
She looked over her shoulder at Jack and Leo who had ceased their fighting in mid stance. Their faces fell with the same loss of confidence Jayson’s had, and for a moment Piper felt a pain of guilt. But she knew she was right. These little boys were nothing more than that — at least right now. She had to be the strong one. She had to guide them.
She looked at the map still clutched in her hand. “This was a mistake,” she said, and threw the parchment to the ground, “You aren’t ready.” She left the boys standing still as statues, and staring after her with pleading eyes.
“Piper, wait,” said Leo, and started after her.
Jack grabbed his arm. “No, just let her be. Let’s find out what Jay did this time.”
Piper stalked up the rocky cliff side making far more noise than she normally would have. But she didn’t care. She was angry, and confused. Above all else, she was afraid. Everything she had been taught as a child seemed as though it had been to groom her for this. No one else in her village knew about the laws of Chartile, or had been taught how to speak with confidence and humility. They did not know the difference in poise necessary when addressing a small or large gathering of people. They did not know which colors signified which rank within the royal army. She was different. She always knew this. From her bright green eyes, when everyone she knew had blue or gray. From the sharp defined jaw, to her natural ability to teach and lead. It had been easy for her neighbors to banish her. They had feared her.
Questions whirled in her mind. Surely her destiny was bigger even than usurping Taraniz. And the boys. How did Jayson, Jack and Leo fit into everything? She regretted those hurtful words. They made her stomach twist in knots.
At the base of the mountain, amidst the rock and dry earth, a lone beech tree had grown. There were a few sparse and smaller trees that had tried and failed to grow in the desolate terrain. But this tree was special. It was tall, thin and weathered. Despite the sparse landscape, it had grown and survived. It was the place Piper came to think. She had found it after the riot, when her parents had died, and after she had been cast out. Like that day, she sat at the roots of the beech tree, her hands clutching at the gnarled white bark as she dropped to the ground. She buried her face in her arms, and cried.
She cried long and hard. She let every emotion she had ever felt for the last three years wash over her. Her tears, hot and salty, stung at the cut still healing on her cheek. She cried, and she cried, and she cried. She cried until she could cry no more. Then she just sat, trembling and hiccupping, and wishing she had remembered the water skin.
“Piper,” said a gentle voice behind her.
She lifted her head at the sound of that voice, and slowly turned to look over her shoulder at the young man kneeling behind her. Her face brightened, and she leapt from the ground to embrace the man.
“Dimitri,” she whispered, “What are you doing here?”
“I need your help.” he said.
“I have to admit, I tend to agree with Jayson. Even if he does have a lack of tact about it.” Leo said taking a drink from the water skin Piper had left.
Jayson thrust his hands out before him and replied, “See? I’m not always insane, ya know.”
“Yeah, but Piper might have actually listened if you hadn’t had a tantrum about it. You could have said things differently,” Jack suggested.
“Like how? It’s never a good time to discuss magic with her. Never! I don’t understand what she’s so afraid of.” Jayson accepted the water skin from Leo. He stopped mid swallow. Water dribbled down his front when he saw Piper coming around the path with a tall, dark skinned and muscular young man at her side. They stood to greet the newcomer, suddenly feeling very awkward in their gangly fourteen year old bodies.
“There has been a change of plans,” Piper said matter-of-factly as she came to a stop before them. “We will be leaving for the Dwarvik fortress on the other side of Mount Kelsii.” She gazed at each of the boys in turn. “Immediately.”
Jayson, Jack and Leo looked at each other, but did not speak. The young man at Piper’s side stepped forward, seeing the uncertainty in their faces, and smiled politely to them.
“My name is Dimitri. I am a friend of Piper.” He gave a small bow. “I am a retainer and the royal liaison to the Empress of the Dwarves of Chartile. She has personally requested a meeting with all of you.”
“With us?” asked Leo.
“Yes,” Dimitri replied with a nod.
“But, we’re just kids,” said Jayson.
“I am sure all of your questions will be answered very soon,” said Dimitri with another smile.
Silence fell. Jayson swung his arms at his sides while Jack contorted his mouth into several bored faces. Leo picked at a pimple on the back of his neck, and Dimitri turned to Piper, his eyebrows raised and a smile pulling at his lips.
“Well, I suppose we should gather our things, then.” Without a look at any of them, Piper headed back up the narrow mountain path toward their cave homes. The boys were left standing in an uncomfortable circle with Dimitri until the young man finally broke ranks, and trudged after Piper.
“Anyone else get the feeling he’s a bit more than her friend?” Jayson asked. Jack and Leo rolled their eyes at Jayson before turning to follow up the path. “What? You agree, don’t you? You just don’t want to say anything.” Jayson followed after, bringing up the rear.
They must have been quite a sight, if anyone had cared to take notice. Dimitri, a strong, dark skinned young man with wavy dark hair, dark eyes and rippling muscles in the lead. Jack, Leo and Jayson, three dirty and lanky boys followed in the middle, and Piper, a tall, messy red-haired young woman brought up the rear. They made their way slowly up and eastward, around the craggy, desolate mountain. They had packed light, for Dimitri had said he would take them along the same path he had travell
ed to get there, and there was plenty of food, water and shelter along the way. It was hard going. The path narrowed and widened unexpectedly, or took sharp turns beside sudden vertical drop offs. The boys had decided to put their tennis shoes back on to give them more traction on their still untrained feet. Dimitri was fascinated with the shoes, and soon they were talking and exchanging tales. Only Piper remained silent.
They walked for hours, moving slowly along the paths. The vastness of the large mountain seemed less noticeable when they were living at its base by Outland Post. Gradually, the mountain began to turn greener and lusher with trees, flowers and moss. Little brooks bubbled from the rocks, only to disappear again a few feet away beneath the ground once more. They noticed birds they had never seen before, and the bugs were atrocious. With the craggy little foothills and sparse landscape they had been living in, it was hard to believe such an immense ecosystem lay only hours beyond where they had made their temporary home. They wondered why Piper had never brought them here to hunt. When asked, she simply replied, “I don’t like to be far from my home,” and she refused to speak more on the matter.
The boys realized their daily treks hunting and gathering food were nothing compared to hiking the entire mountain. They stopped often to rest and refill their water skins. Jack assumed it was because they were too slow and complained often of fatigue. Leo suspected Piper was stalling for time. She did not seem eager for what awaited her when they arrived at Fortress Kelsii. Jayson was just grateful, and heaved himself to the ground with great dramatics each time.
“Holy cramping legs to the max, Batman!” he cried after nearly eight hours of traveling. They had stopped at their third or fourth spring, and dusk was beginning to fall. “How much further is this place? You said you got to us in a day?” Jayson asked Dimitri, his eyes wide and staring in disbelief.
Chartile: Prophecy Page 5